- Author｜Chenchen
- Source｜NetEase Technology
- Release time｜2021-03-18
Apple is expected to release an update to the iOS 14.5 operating system in the near future. By then, Apple's privacy control strategy will undergo major changes, which will have a significant impact on the advertising business of developers. The popular short video app TikTok is working hard to develop its own advertising business before Apple’s new privacy control measures are introduced. It will rely more on in-app data to help advertisers deliver personalized ads to consumers.
Apple's new strategy will make it more difficult for apps and advertisers to track consumers through the Internet, place targeted and redirected ads, find new customers, and weigh the effectiveness of advertising. The major brands will naturally care about the impact of this adjustment on their business and advertising.
In response to these changes, TikTok is strengthening its consumer tracking function internally and developing new tools. Advertisers said that TikTok has been testing new methods of collecting data, including creating more powerful Pixel tools for marketers. Pixel is a website event management tool. Marketers embed these codes in websites and applications to record consumer activities, such as users clicking on product images or making purchases. Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok all have Pixel tools, which convert data collected by marketers on websites into personalized ads on social media platforms.
"TikTok is currently testing to make the Pixel tool more dynamic and capable of advanced matching," said Danisha Lomax, vice president and group director of paid social business at Digitas, a digital advertising company. "Matching" refers to the process of obtaining data from Pixel tools and redirecting consumers on apps such as TikTok. This so-called "match" is successful when the brand can obtain the e-mail address or other identifier that can be linked to the login user of other applications.
Consumers still need to approve
After Apple released its privacy policy adjustments, the Pixel tool can still operate normally in most cases. This is mainly because the Pixel tool can collect "first-party" data directly obtained by the brand, and consumers tend to agree with the Pixel tool when facing the website privacy statement. However, the number of consumers matching personalized advertising will change, as it depends on whether consumers will agree to accept targeted advertising on apps such as TikTok, Snapchat or Facebook.
Recently, TikTok began to explain how the ads in the app will change. TikTok said it will automatically match users with personalized ads based on their activities when using the app. But TikTok users can still choose to prohibit advertisers from targeting themselves based on user data collected from TikTok.
TikTok said that if users choose to refuse to locate themselves through the data collected by a third party, the effect of the enhanced Pixel tool will also be weakened.
This adjustment is carried out imperceptibly, which indicates that once Apple's privacy policy takes effect, the advertising methods that brands place on various social media platforms will undergo more extensive changes. Social media platforms such as Tiktok, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter will rely more on building user profiles on their own platforms.
Lomax said that for brand owners, they need to re-evaluate how to analyze data from major platforms and which data should be prioritized when launching advertising and marketing activities. Major brands are beginning to develop strategies for the new generation of Internet advertising models. In the new advertising era, the traditional one-to-one consumer tracking method has been overshadowed.
New strategy
On TikTok, this means that brand owners need to think more about how advertising can directly play a role in the app, instead of relying on matching consumers outside of the app. These are priorities that almost all social media needs to consider. In such a world, the interaction between consumers and advertisements will become invalid after they leave the app, and advertisers need to observe consumer activities on the app in a new way.
Analyzing who has watched the advertisement, how long it has been, and making advertisements based on these data will also be the key to finding "similar" consumers. These potential new customers who are similar to existing customers are the brand's profit target. According to Apple's new rules, identifying "similar" consumers will be a more difficult task.
Lomax said: "We require major brands to consider the customer base more widely." "So they cast a larger net in order to attract more consumer interest."
Last month, TikTok published a blog post for advertisers, emphasizing the importance of first-party data in the future. This includes collecting as much time as possible from consumers on the app-what videos they watched, how long they watched it, what they were interested in, and what advertisements they watched. Major brands need to find new customers inside the app, instead of relying on data collected outside of TikTok.
"Our team will continue to evaluate the development of first-party solutions and data strategies that support the needs of our advertisers," TikTok said in a notice to marketers. "We are taking a series of measures to realize the commitment of the user community to give priority to privacy and work closely with the industry."
The TikTok statement is similar to the statements already issued by Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Google, etc., because they all want to let marketers understand the significant impact of Apple's privacy policy adjustments. Apple has taken the strongest stance on the advertising tracking industry. It prioritizes whether consumers are allowed to monitor their online activities and uses these activities to customize services and brands. Apple is expected to add a new privacy notification feature to the next-generation iPhone software. Consumers will see more notifications in all applications, describing the benefits of personalized tracking, and requiring permission to track their online behavior.
At the same time, Google is also taking similar measures to change the marketing methods of its advertising platform. The privacy rules of Android phones may also change like the iPhone.
Facebook has been lobbying the entire Internet industry to retain user tracking features in order to achieve personalized Internet services. Facebook’s $85 billion advertising business volume depends entirely on the effectiveness of its targeted advertising and whether these ads can bring revenue to its more than 10 million advertisers.
George Manas, President and Chief Media Officer of Haoteng Media USA, said that Facebook may be the company most affected by Apple's new policy adjustments, but all platforms must adapt. However, in some respects, Apple's strict privacy control may be beneficial to applications such as TikTok, because marketers may be more willing to spend money outside of Facebook. To some extent, Apple is promoting fair competition in the Internet advertising market.
Manas said: "We bluntly said that Facebook is a precision marketing platform, which is one of the reasons why it is so important to advertisers, because it provides advertisers with the opportunity to accurately target consumers." "Now, Changes in iOS have brought challenges to some of these content, and the keywords in the customer base have become'diversified'."
